A bride-to-be had called to ask when her engagement announcement would appear in the paper. I told her,

“Either this Friday or next Friday.” I then caught myself: “Either this Friday or next Wednesday,” I said.

Later in the day, I was in a meeting. At the end, we had to decide when to hold a follow-up meeting. The group was leaning toward next Thursday at 1:30 p.m. I almost raised my hand to say I would be unable to attend because I would be putting together next Friday’s Herald. Only a quick epiphany kept me from looking silly.

Clearly, I need to start thinking weekly paper, and I reckon the same is true of Herald readers, especially folks who submit items to the paper for publication.

The biggest change obviously is that, going forward, the paper will have one deadline a week instead of two. That means, in short, one chance a week to publicize that church or community event.

When is that deadline? For most announcements, the cutoff will be noon on the Friday before the next Wednesday’s paper, and I would encourage folks to submit their items even earlier. I know Friday to Wednesday sounds like a lot of time. But while it’s true that the paper will be delivered on Wednesdays, we will actually wrap up production, or “put the paper to bed,” Monday nights. A deadline of noon Friday should give us ample time to prepare for publication of the many news items the paper receives. But at the busiest times of year, that might be cutting it close, so sooner is always better than later.

In the paragraph above, I purposely used “most announcements,” because The Herald will accept obituaries until 5 p.m. Mondays. Also, as we have done for some time now, The Herald will publish online those obits it receives between publication dates. I have always thought daily newspapers had the advantage of being able to publish an obit before the funeral took place. The Web allows community newspapers like The Herald to do that also. And so I would encourage our many funeral homes to submit their obits as soon as the arrangements are made.

The simplest thing to do is e-mail obits and other items to sbolejac@nando.com. That saves yours truly some typing and, quite frankly, reduces the chances of typos on my part. I’m such a poor typist that the “delete” key on my computer has been worn down to the point that it says “dele.”

The one thing I’m uncertain about going forward is how many pages a weekly Herald will have. Will it have more, less or about the same as a twice-weekly paper? I’m hoping for more but planning for less just in case.

That means some items that now appear in print might migrate exclusively to online. I’m thinking particularly about items like “In the Churches,” a recap of sermons past, and “Senior Calendars,” a list of the coming week’s activities in the county’s eight senior centers. It’s possible also that other items might be online only, but every week, we’ll let you know what’s on the Web.

Speaking of online, I suspect and hope The Herald’s online edition will play an increasingly prominent role in our news operations. Already, we use the Web to break news that happens between our print editions. On Wednesday of this week, two days before our next print edition, we had stories about a pedestrian fatality in Selma and a barn fire across the road from Smithfield-Selma High School. We also had a story about the 2008 Johnston County Economic forum.

Going forward, we will have even more days between print editions, so I suspect more breaking news online, not less.

And here’s another thing about online. Suppose you’re responsible for getting your church’s barbecue dinner in the paper and then suppose you miss the deadline. Don’t despair. Send it along anyway, and we’ll post it online. That’s the beauty of the Web: It can be updated any time, any day.

That’s pretty cool.

I’ve been at The Herald 21 years now, and we’re about to embark on the biggest change I can remember. So if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call me at 934-2176, Ext. 132, or drop me an e-mail at the address above.

See ya next Wednesday.